My Momentary Miami Meander

 

Hello again, Blogonauts!

Air travel these days can be a bit higgledy-piggledy.

And so to ensure that airline oddities wouldn't waylay my plans, I gave myself a couple of pre-Cuba days to meander around in Miami.

Two days is not nearly enough to fully engage with a new city. But even in such a short time, Miami has left me with some genuine impressions.

Let me dispense with the minor annoyances first: Miami's auto traffic would give any pedestrian the jitters, its heat (even in February) has left me a bit wilty, and its construction boom suggests that they're secretly rebuilding the entire city from the ground up.

OK...now on to the more pleasant and surprising take-aways:

The city has a relatively good public transit system, including the free-to-use overhead trams (pictured above) that run in a loop throughout downtown.

But here's a question: Why did the chicken cross the tram tracks? But more importantly, why am I asking?

Feral roosters in Downtown Miami

Hen & Chicks scratching for bugs to eat.

Just as I left the train to downtown, I was greeted by a rooster crowing from the pavement. When I looked agog, a nearby local told me, "Yeah! They're all over downtown." Indeed, feral chickens seem to have the run of the roads and walkways. (A friend suggested that they're only feral until you try to catch one, only to find someone owns it.)

And if you're in south Florida, it's inevitable that you're going to see lizards.

I leave it to you to identify these reptilians

 

I spent much of my first day in Miami touring the Vizcaya museum and garden. In line with a number of museums left by multi-millionaires of the Jazz Age (North Carolina's Biltmore Mansion, California's Hearst Mansion, & The Breakers in Rhode Island), this finely assembled and constructed house was the winter home of John Deering, the International Harvester farm equipment magnate.

There's no denying it's an astonishing place. Sitting directly on the bay, it is made to resemble a Renaissance European villa. The house remains lavishly furnished and the gardens exquisitely trimmed and watered.

 My second day took me on a more meandering tour around downtown Miami. Here are a few snapshots.

The view of Pier 5

A portion of the Berlin Wall. (I know...they're everywhere.)

Downtown's bayside skyscrapers.

A park near the science museum celebrating dogs & cats

My flight for Havana leaves in about an hour, so let's turn the page on Miami, and get ready for the next chapter: Havana!

Blog to you later!